The Boxing is Dead Masterlog Hall of Shame

People have been saying the same about equestrianism but guess what? As long as there are horses my boys will be riding elegantly and as long as there is leather our boys will never quit fighting.

 

I mean it will never die completely but it’s definitely at its lowest point

 

The number of fights, the number of boxers, the number of countries hosting pro boxing - it has all gone up (and significantly so!) over the past several decades. So how can boxing be at an all-time low?

 

Update:

Boxing is a dying sport, former heavyweight champion Jack Sharkey asserted asserted today, with no one in sight who can beat "the kingpin who would have been a sparring partner in my time."
Spokane Daily Chronicle 20 Feb 1952

https://books.google.com/books?id=X...F6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=boxing-is-dying&f=false

 

Too much pedigree for the sport to die.

 

Being on life support for 144 years is quite amazing.

Shocking to read that what most of us consider the golden age of boxing was considered by their respective older guard as "the boys do not know how to box" "they aren't hungry", while we look back on them as starving ring geniuses

 

Boxing is not dead, it's just in a coma.

 

If by lowest, more global & in many ways easier to access than ever, yes. Do you miss the days when Frankie Carbo ran Boxing or the 70 odd years when so much talent was kept out from pro Boxing due to the communist bloc?

Since the collapse of the communist bloc we have seen:

Klitschko's, Bivol, Beterbiev, Usyk, GGG, Kovalev to name a few

Currently we have Janibek (160), & Otabek (126)

All of these guys would have never got to turn pro unless they escaped West just 35 odd years ago

Back then if you had to access any old fights you had to go hunting around for VHS tapes & if you wanted to access fights from 1920's...

Now you need an internet connection

People have always said Boxing is dying or dead with what we now see as golden ages being seen as evidence of decline in their own time by old fogies who would probably talk about how Benny Leonard would have KO'd Duran in 4

Unheralded HW Cassius Clay was apparently evidence of this decline as well:

Fans are often quick to point out the not-so-distant past when Oscar De La Hoya's impending retirement had the same media questioning what would be next, who could take the ball and run with it into the future. Of course, Mayweather and Pacquiao were there to fill that role.

But the "boxing is dying" meme dates back to well before the last decade. In 1913, the Los Angeles Times ran an article titled "Professional Boxing Is Dying A Natural Death." In 1923 the same publication ran an article titled simply "Boxing Is Dying Out."

The St. Joseph News-Press ran an article in their January 10, 1934 edition detailing Kid Howard closing his legendary gym. Howard told the paper "The sport is dying. There are not good enough boxers or good attractions left. I can see no future for the sport. There are more clubs and more stadiums in the country with no outstanding boxers to fill them, or even come close."

In the mid-1940's it was boxing on the radio that was supposedly killing the sport. By 1951, articles such as one appearing in The Montreal Gazette's December 26 edition, were defending televised boxing, the latest innovation supposedly killing the sport.

The mid-50's brought more "dead sport" talk. The Toledo Blade on June 8, 1955 read "Let's face it. Boxing is dying everywhere, because commissions have surrendered to fighters and managers."

1961 brought a new wave of the same old stuff, boxing was dying, again because of TV. Former champ Jack Dempsey explained "TV, or rather too much TV, and the people who profit from it, has put the independent promoters out of business. There are few, if any, small clubs anywhere in the country. Those clubs were the source of talent. Without fresh talent, boxing is dying."

Even unheralded heavyweight title challenger Cassius Clay was possibly part of the inevitable death of boxing in 1963, along with fans not getting their money's worth.

Four years later, in the June 6, 1967 edition of the Leiston Morning Tribune, Archie Moore mentioned Ali as one of the saviors of boxing as people again claimed the sport was on life support, "They sounded the death knell on boxing in 1938, but it enjoyed a spectacular growth after that. Then they sounded the death knell again, and along came (Cassius) Clay. And now you've got these Italian boys."

And here we are, in 2013 running through the same cycles. There are no stars! There's too much boxing on PPV! There's too little boxing on PPV! Where are the clubs creating new young boxers?! It's the commissions! It's the managers! The fights are boring!

But the reality remains, Floyd isn't making $41.5 million and Alvarez $12.5 million, in a fight that already set a Las Vegas live gate record, and will likely set pay-per-view records, to compete in a sport that is "dead."

The sport of boxing is flawed, it has always been flawed. But as with every other period in its history, it's not going anywhere.

https://www.sbnation.com/2013/9/11/4718644/mayweather-vs-canelo-superfight-boxing-is-dying-meme

 

Great post only one thing I feel differently about is the reason for boxing's decline is plain & simply CORRUPTION!!! The Red Light Sport. But never before has the corruption been as bad & blatant as it is today. The perpetrators don't even try to hide it. Even the commissions get involved. They try to clear one fighter with a comical " He did nothing wrong " when it was obvious he did. They destroy another fighters good name & wreck his career with this " We will not reinstate his licence to box in the state because we still SUSPECT he might have tried to cheat" What about the US law " any suspect must be regarded as innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" ????? Nuff said I think